4 Ways to Defeat Political Hobbyism (Hint: Podcasts Can Help)

Learn how to get this sticker… and so much more in this blog post!

This is a guest blog post, written by the team over at the Future Hindsight podcast, which is celebrating the launch of its 11th season! Sign up for our weekly podcast recommendation newsletter to receive 5 podcast episode recommendations according to a theme. Each week’s picks are curated by a different person. Find our archive here.

The Future Hindsight team is passionate about civic engagement and their podcast shows this value strongly. This blog post utilizes some of the quotes and teachings from one of their recent interviews (with Eitan Hersh) to bring a concrete civics lesson to our readers. Enjoy! Please reach out to Mila with questions and comments.

How many hours are you spending on Twitter nowadays? 2? 4? 10? Whatever it is, it’s probably too long, but with COVID worsening country-wide, the election ramping up, and the economy worsening, it often feels as though there’s nothing else to do.

The ranks of America’s keyboard warriors swelled this year, and this influx comes as one of the biggest problems facing the American social landscape: political hobbyism. According to Eitan Hersh—the political scientist who coined the phrase—we’re engaging with politics all wrong, and that mis-engagement is destroying our political system. Political hobbyism refers to the time we all spend engrossed in politics without actually doing anything. Our amateur punditry, doom- scrolling, news binges, and yes, even political podcast listening, all fall under political hobbyism’s umbrella. “Politics is the way we solve problems,” Hersh recently said on Future Hindsight, a podcast focusing on civic engagement and political power building. “The problem is that most people who kind of say they care about that and most people who are spending a ton of time thinking about that are just not doing anything.”

Read national and local newspapers to avoid politic hobbyism — Read national *and* local newspapers to avoid politic hobbyism

Political hobbyism gamifies our political structure and makes us spectators, rather than the active participants our electoral system requires us to be. It contributes to the virality of politics, prioritizing Congressional clap-backs and snappy fundraising campaigns over serious governance and progress. Although political hobbyism is a scourge, it doesn’t mean you need to stop listening to The Daily, or retweeting your favorite politician. Instead, you need to take some of that political energy and redirect it into concrete civic actions. “You can do it on your own,” Hersh told Future Hindsight’s host Mila Atmos. “And a lot of people are doing that on their own. I think what they’re doing is they’re shifting in their minds from thinking about politics as something that’s important to pay attention to, to politics is something where I, as a citizen, can be important.”

Civic engagement is critical, but it can be hard to know where to start, and even more so in the middle of a pandemic.

Here are four ways to break the cycle of political hobbyism and the boredom of quarantine by getting civically engaged from a responsible distance.

Let’s do it.

1. Change Your News Consumption

Political hobbyism thrives on the endless consumption of national news. If you’re a newshound who spends hours listening to or reading to the nation’s top stories, it’s time to change your focus. Staying abreast of significant developments is great, but almost all political change happens on a local level. Start paying attention to what’s happening in your community. Subscribe to your local newspaper. Find a podcast dealing with your state or niche political interest. There are more and more local-focused podcasts being created daily that focus on politics and civic life in more focused geographic regions. A quick google search should render some helpful results. Think of unorthodox news sources—you’ll learn much more about your community by attending a (virtual) town hall or candidate forum than you will watching CNN. Switching your news focus from national to local allows you to identify community problems you can help solve.

2. Volunteer

The best way to kick your political hobbyism habit is to take direct action, and there’s no better way to do that than to volunteer. “Identify the issues or politicians or political party you care about,” Hersh told Atmos. “Start thinking about what could your role be. Maybe it’s your role to move people electorally. Maybe your role is to support an organization from really like a back seat position. “If you’re unsure where to start, groups like The League of Women Voters and Indivisible have great resources and operate on local levels in many places around the country.

Eitan Hersh - economist who coined the term “political hobbyism.”

3. Engage with Your Lawmakers

Politicians may make the laws, but we make the politicians. Find out who your local reps are, and reach out to them to solve a problem. Perhaps your local municipality needs a mask ordinance, or you’re concerned about the re-opening of the local school district due to COVID-19. Since local politics often suffer from a shortage of engagement, your voice can have an outsized impact on your community, and you can make a difference.

While you’re doing this, don’t forget to let your national representatives know how you feel, too. Find your state representative and call them regarding an issue you care about—like passing the HEROES Act, a bill responding to COVID-19’s impact on the economy, public health, state and local governments, individuals, and businesses.

4. VOTE!

This one seems simple, but it’s the most important thing you can do as an American. Don’t only vote in presidential and congressional races, slap an “I VOTED” sticker on your shirt, and call it a day. There are so many other races that you can have an impact in with your vote. Focus most of your political energy and research on local elections. The first step is finding out when they are; treat your municipal elections with the same attitude you do national races. If you find a local candidate you believe in, you can volunteer to phone bank, give money, or educate your friends and neighbors on their policies. Your local leaders have more of an impact on your life than the president does (though it may not seem like it lately), and your political actions should reflect that. If you haven’t yet, head over to TurboVote and register to vote! Focusing on your community and getting out from behind a screen makes a tremendous amount of difference in the political sphere.

If you’re currently a political hobbyist, you don’t need to feel bad! You can still enjoy your political podcasts AND be an engaged member of your community.

On that note, if you’re looking for a show that provides actionable insights like these, check out our podcast, Future Hindsight. Future Hindsight interview experts, activists, and citizen-changemakers like Eitan Hersh to give you detailed information and ideas to stay civically active and politically engaged. You can also check out their Patreon offering, The Civics Club, for even more civic engagement content—what’s better than supporting independent podcasting and promoting democracy at the same time?

Hey, readers! Did you enjoy this blog post? We wanted to combine two of our favorite things: podcast listening and civic engagement. Do you have an idea for a blog post that combines podcasts with your favorite things? Let us know! We’d love for you to write a guest blog post for us!